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Israeli settlers in Judea & Samaria (West Bank) are defying the Israeli government's ten month housing freeze. In several incidents, the residents have prevented housing inspectors from entering their communities to serve the building freeze orders. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has tried to allay the settlers' fury by stressing that Israeli construction will be resumed after the ten month 'suspension' and that 3,000 current housing units will be completed. IsraCast assessment: Israel is now bracing for a showdown between settlers and their former champion, right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In other developments this week, are there new manifestations of the 'clash of civilizations' in Europe and even in the Middle East?

In a dramatic diplomatic development, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has announced a ten-month suspension of housing permits for building in West Bank settlements. At the same time, Netanyahu made clear that housing construction would continue in Jerusalem's suburbs such as Gilo, which were constructed beyond the 1967 line after the Six Day War of 1967. In the existing West Bank settlements, public buildings such as schools, kindergartens and synagogues will continue as well as the completing of 3,000 housing units now underway. Analyst David Essing is of the view that Netanyahu's ambiguous approach on settlement construction may prove to impact as much on Israel's confrontation with Iran as it does on the Palestinians.

At week's end, speculation again swirled around the possibility that a German mediator may be closing a long awaited prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas - captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in return for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists. Meanwhile, the Israeli decision to build 900 housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhood Gilo, after Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to U.S. President Barack Obama's demand for a settlement freeze on the West Bank, is a new source of friction. But while these events were dominating the headlines, Iran for the umpteenth time, declared it would not concede on enriching uranium. Obama warned of 'consequences'. Meanwhile it was reported that while Israeli pilots were to undergo a refresher course to cope with the mental stress in attacking long range targets.

The Iranian nuclear threat was obviously high on the agenda of US President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu when they met in the White House this week. So far, nothing has leaked about what they discussed. However according to the respected Al-Hayat newspaper, published in London, 'informed sources' have said Netanyahu told Sarkozy that Israel did not rule out a military strike against Iran. The French leader stressed the need of pursuing with the current diplomatic effort that has failed to dissuade to halt its uranium enrichment program. Meanwhile, in the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee, the IDF Chief Of Staff, Gen. Ashkenazi made some telling remarks that illuminate the nuclear double bind that confronts Israel at this juncture.

Almost daily this week, there were dramatic developments in Israel's counter-terror campaign. At the center, what Israeli experts call the 'Iranian octopus' of terrorist activities - the Israeli seizure at sea of an innocent- looking merchant ship, the Francop, with a cargo of hundreds tons of weapons and explosives plying its course to Syria and then on to Hezballah in south Lebanon. Secondly, the Palestinians test launched a rocket with a sixty kilometer range that could hit the Tel Aviv metropolitan area of the Jewish state. This did not make any impression in the UN General Assembly. There, delegates of the 118 nations of the pro- Arab majority, took the podium to vilify the Jewish state for defending her citizens against Iranian sponsored terrorism. This time they had a new rallying point - what is viewed in Israel as the infamous Goldstone report that alleged that Israel had committed war crimes during the Cast Lead operation to halt eight years of rocketing of Israeli civilians from Gaza. IsraCast joins the dots of the big picture.

Iran has rejected the latest proposal from the International Atomic Energy Agency for resolving the crisis over Tehran's nuclear weapons project. After a week's delay, Iran now contends the IAEA scheme is unacceptable in its present form. The offer was that Iran would send some 75% of its low grade enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be reprocessed into fuel rods for peaceful nuclear research (that are not suitable for nuclear weapons). What happens now? Menashe Amir, an Israeli expert on Iran who predicted that Tehran would reject the proposal, has revealed to IsraCast why the Free World should immediately impose harsh sanctions on the Iranian regime.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned that the nuclear arrangement brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, designed to halt Iran's nuclear weapons development, will in fact lend legitimacy to Iran's continued enrichment of uranium for its development of nuclear weapons. Israel favored all options being kept on the table and the imposing of stiffer sanctions immediately. Barak has left no doubt that Israel views the Iranian deal as doomed to failure. Iran originally raised the idea of sending most of its declared 1,500 kilograms of low-grade uranium to Russia and France for further enrichment that would be returned for Iran's 'civilian' use. Menashe Amir, an Israeli analyst on Iran told IsraCast that on the basis of Iran's track record, Tehran will exploit the deal to continue its nuclear weapons plan.

What are the prospects for the Geneva nuclear talks aimed at halting Iran's nuclear weapons program? The revelation of the secret uranium enrichment being built in a military base near the holy city of Qom have added greater a greater sense of urgency for an intensified steps to deter Iran from continuing its nuclear weapons project. In an in depth interview, Menashe Amir, a leading Israeli expert on Iran, presented his scenario of how the Iranians, 'the masters of diplomatic deception' will again attempt to stonewall the five permanent members. Amir said the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany must now 'get serious' if they really intend to halt the fanatical, religious regime in Tehran that aspires not only to 'wipe Israel off the map' but also to dominate the Arab states the entire world.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu first caught the eye of the Israeli public when he served as an eloquent Ambassador to the U.N. He has now returned to the General Assembly to make a masterful defense of the Jewish state's struggle for survival, not only in the Middle East, but also in UN bodies that single her for 'special treatment'.

Over the past seventy-hours, a series of events have been swirling around the Middle East and farther afield. U.S. President Barack Obama has in fact launched what amounts to a new initiative. On one hand, Obama's strategy is to try and halt Iran's nuclear weapons drive on one tract, in tandem with an Israeli-Palestinian summit at the UN. IsraCast tries to fit the pieces of Obama's puzzle into place.

Less than twenty-four hours after the crash of Capt. Assaf Ramon, Israelis were trying to grasp what has become not only a national but also a painful personal tragedy. Capt. Assaf Ramon, the son of national hero Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut killed in the Columbia spaceship disaster, had also been killed and while training as a fighter pilot. He had been following in his father's footsteps, but no one had dared to think that Assaf would also be killed on duty. That would be too much.

The building at Israeli settlements has
placed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu between the hammer and anvil
of both international and domestic politics. U.S. President Barack
Obama has relentlessly pressured Netanyahu to halt building at the
settlements while right-wing supporters warned the Prime Minister
against any such step. Coming against the backdrop of fresh reports
that Iran is advancing in its nuclear weapons project, Netanyahu has
been hard pressed to find a course of action that might be accepted, if
grudgingly, both at home and in Washington.

Over the past
summer months Palestinian peace talks remained in the diplomatic
doldrums, secret contacts on a Shalit prisoner exchange dragged on
while the current internal unrest in Iran cast another shadow over the
proposed nuclear negotiations with Tehran. However, the IsraCast update
is that these slumbering but vital issues may soon reawaken on the
international stage.

If the Obama administration has ruled out pre-emptive military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel has not followed. Israeli officials have criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments that the U.S. would supply a 'defensive umbrella' to the Gulf states, if Iran gets the bomb. Israeli officials have said they do not agree to Iran getting the bomb, nor should the Obama administration. IsraCast assesses the latest developments as Russia announces that the nuclear reactor it has sold to Iran at Bushehr will go operational by the end of the year.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama Have again squared off, this time over Israeli construction in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarah. The two leaders had already crossed after Obama declared that all building in existing Israeli settlements on the West Bank must stop, something Netanyahu rejects. Although Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have met twice trying to break the impasse over the settlement issue, the Israeli leader has dug in his heels over what he views as Israel's sovereign right to build in east Jerusalem. IsraCast says the latest clash is actually over Obama's insistence that Jerusalem will be up for negotiation in future Israeli-Palestinian talks while Netanyahu contends that Jerusalem is non- negotiatble as far as he is concerned.

The G-8 summit in Italy has set a deadline of September 25th for progress in the U.S.- nuclear dialogue. A former Israel Air Force Commander, Maj.-Gen.(res.) Eitan Ben Elihu states unequivocally that Israel has the military capability to take out Iran's nuclear weapons installation. French President Nicole Sarkozy warns Israel not to do it on her own declaring that Israel is not alone. Back in Jerusalem Dr. Uzi Arad, a senior defense advisor to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has reckoned that the international community still has sufficient time to stop Iran while the idea of 'living with an Iranian bomb' is absurd. An IsraCast analysis attempts to join the dots.

U.S. Vice president Joe Biden has done it again; several months ago he warned Israel against attacking Iran's nuclear installations, now he has said it is Israel's sovereign decision. What is behind America's shifting ground on one of the gravest dangers on the international agenda? And how and why are ' moderate' Arab states indicating they are more worried about Iran than Israel? IsraCast assesses recent changes that go far beyond diplomatic nuances.

After a four-hour meeting in New York, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and U.S. Middle East George Mitchell have reduced the gap over Israeli building in West Bank settlements. Interviewed on Israel Radio, Barak said the main thing was 'to put the settlement question in the wider context of peace between Israel and the Arab world'. In a new twist, Arab religious leaders refused to follow an Iranian delegate's lead and stayed to hear an address by President Shimon Peres at an inter- faith conference in the Islamic state of Kazakhstan.

The Iranian regime's ruthless suppression of the popular unrest leaves many questions hanging in the air.While the world looks on, the Obama administration appears to be ready for business as usual, while preparing to enter a nuclear dialogue with the Ayatollah's, who have shot and beaten throngs of young protesting Iranians into submission. IsraCast assesses Israeli reaction to the aftermath of the Iranian uprising triggered by a rigged election that will return President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office.

While the ayatollahs in Tehran tried to restore quiet after the post election violence, the Mossad, Israel's equivalent of the American CIA, has presented its latest assessment of the situation. Appearing at a closed-door session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee, Mossad director Meir Dagan and one of his top aides evaluated Iran in the midst of the bloody controversy over whether incumbent, radical Islamist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or 'reformist' Mir-Hossein Mousavi had won the election.